Halloween in Korea

Happy Halloween!  It is not a holiday that is celebrated by anyone but the foreigners in Korea.  And the English academies.  All of our kindergartners came to school in costumes today and we got to have a Halloween party with them.  My "costume" was an athlete/coach, or an excuse to wear sweats to work.  Each class went to the different classrooms to go "trick-or-treating" and we all went to the playground where the kids got to have a scavenger hunt to find the candy.  The English academy is the only place the kids will get to do trick-or-treating though.  They will not go knocking on every door in their 34 floor apartment buildings while wearing their costumes tonight.  There was a small section advertising Halloween candy when we went to the store last night, but I must say it was significantly smaller than the section advertising Spam gift sets during the Korean holiday Chuseok last month!  But the kids seemed to have a lot of fun dressing up and getting A LOT of candy at school today.  Of course my class had to be the ones to discover that it was much easier to enjoy the candy without the vampire teeth in their mouth.  The elementary students that we teach in the afternoon were definitely disappointed that they did not get to dress up and go trick-or-treating, especially the ones that remembered it from kindergarten last year.  Fortunately, all the teachers still had some candy leftover for them to have (if they said "trick-or-treat").  

Side note:  Our landlord is actually a taxi driver on the Yongsan Military Base here.  He has started bringing us a copy of the newspaper that is available on the base which was advertising A LOT of trick-or-treating, haunted houses, pumpkin carving activities for the families that live on base.  We sure wish we could have taken the little kids out for some real trick-or-treating or pumpkin carving!  But I guess Halloween, like many other "American" things, is a holiday that hasn't spread very far off of the military base area.

Here are a few pictures from kindergarten...

 

 A princess and a devil (Elizabeth and Jayden)

 We decided that if Jacob had some glasses he would look just like an Asian Harry Potter!

 Eric Teacher and his class

 Trick-or-treating at school

Pictures of our home

Things are still a bit unorganized and we still have some unpacking to do but for the most part it is starting to look like a home!  We are definitely in need of finding something else to use as storage space since the one dresser we have filled up very quickly but other than that we have just about everything we definitely need.  In the near future we plan to buy an oven and possibly a bigger refrigerator.  But right now we are very happy :)

We had a very nice housewarming party this afternoon thanks to some of our great coworkers.  Our building has a nice rooftop area (what's one more flight of stairs after everyone already climbed the five to get to our place?) so with everyone's contributions we were able to BBQ some delicious samgyupsal, eat some pizza, and of course rice and kimchi as well and enjoy it outside on the roof.  Definitely more food than we could eat!

Here are several pictures of our home!  We know it still needs some work but it is officially our home and we love it!

 A bathroom with a sink!  The shower is still funky hanging above the sink but I guess that's how it is here.  The washing machine is behind the sliding doors.

 Our entry way, just the entry way this time unlike in our last apartment!

 The living room.  Plenty of room for a couch and TV.  We also have a fold up kitchen table for dinner time and whenever we want some table space.

 The kitchen!  It might not be a "normal" kitchen by American standards but we love how much bigger it is than our last kitchen!  We can both be doing something in the kitchen at the same time!

 View from the living room window

 Our bedroom

Hooray for Moving Day!

We did it!! We have officially moved from our tiny studio apartment into a much larger one bedroom villa!  Although it was a lot of work, the actual moving part was pretty easy.  We were very thankful to have the help of one of our Korean friends who drove us and our MANY shopping bags of "stuff" from the old place to the new place.  I'm not sure how many times the three of us went up and down the five flights of stairs but it was definitely A LOT!  (Though we think it's getting easier already :) )  We can already tell the unpacking part is much more difficult than throwing everything in suitcases and bags and moving it here.  We did make a pretty good dent in things today and at least have the living room set up enough to have people over for a housewarming party tomorrow.  But we are still in need of some more storage containers before the bedroom will be completely presentable.  Our bosses stopped by our new place today to tell us congratulations and brought with them a pack of 30 rolls of toilet paper.  One of our other Korean friends and his family came over tonight and brought along a pack of 30 rolls of toilet paper also.  I don't think we will need to buy any for a very long time!

I must say it feels pretty much amazing to be sitting on our own couch in our own home!  We have a real entry way, a real living room, a real kitchen and a real bedroom!  (The bathroom is still kind of iffy but that's okay)  We finally have the space and comforts to feel like we are in a home instead of a hotel room.  It already feels like a place we will definitely enjoy calling home for the rest of our time here.  We are very, very happy!  I promise pictures will come tomorrow when we have had a little more time to get organized! 

2 Days 'til Moving Day!

After spending two nights this week out searching for things to buy for our new home, we have spent the last two nights packing.  Wow.  How did we have so much stuff in this tiny studio apartment?  And better yet how did we get it all here in our four suitcases?!  Yes I suppose all the little things we have bought for the kitchen and elsewhere have added to our collection.  And the bigger things like the TV, microwave and toaster oven make the stacks of boxes and bags even taller.  Moving is definitely no easy task!  I still don't quite see how it's all going to get moved on Saturday but I know it will- just with a lot of work!  We will try to keep count of how many times we go and up down those five flights of stairs so we can let you know :)  Needless to say our tiny space is feeling even more cramped now that we have emptied most of the dresser and closet and set it out so it's ready to go on Saturday.  Not everything fits into our suitcases so we have all of our reusable shopping bags filled with things too.  It's quite a mess!  I thought I would post a picture but it is too much of a mess for anyone to see!  We would much rather have you see our nice, new, clean place in a couple days!

Only two more days and we could not be more excited!!  We cannot wait to be able to have the space to make things feel more like home.  We will post an update and pictures from our new home as soon as we can! :)

First Home Purchases

Well we made the first purchases for our new home tonight!!  Furniture purchases to be exact.  Next to our school is a used furniture/appliance store.  After work we were able to find a couch, a dresser, and a TV stand.  This place also agreed to move our bed and anything else we have packed up in suitcases and boxes, as well as deliver the new furniture for free on Saturday.  We also went to the local mart and bought some smaller items for the kitchen, including matching plate and bowl sets.  We are trying to find a nice balance between cost effective since we know our time here is short term, but also being really comfortable for the next sixteen months.  Since most of our savings went to the housing deposit that we can't touch until our lease is up we kind of feel like we are back where we started.  Fortunately we know that is very short term! Tomorrow night we plan to go to Costco and see if we are lucky enough to find that they have any good furniture at the moment.  We are still wanting to get a coffee table and kitchen table as soon as we can find them. 

Eric has begun the packing process tonight of packing up the TV and video game systems.  Our internet decided to stop working yesterday which also means the cable so we don't have much use for the TV the rest of the week.  (Our new place has cable and internet included in the maintenance bill every month!)  We may be living in the smallest studio apartment you've ever seen but somehow we have acquired a whole lot of stuff that needs to be packed and moved! 

Meanwhile our Korean coworkers have informed us that we need to have a housewarming party on Sunday, the day after we move.  Apparently it is an important custom in Korea to have a housewarming type party right after you move.  I only hope everything is moved and somewhat unpacked by then!  At least this time we will have a bedroom door to close so no one can see our mess!

We are so excited that Saturday will be here soon! :)

Home Hunting

Today we got to go on a home hunting adventure.  Since we have decided to stay in Korea until March 2014 we definitely wanted to try and find a bigger place.  The lease that our boss has on our current apartment is up the first of November and she gave us the go ahead to find our own place and receive a housing allowance from her instead of having her choose and pay for our apartment.  This was the first time we have had the opportunity to go house/apartment hunting so we were very excited!  Someone has already signed a lease for our current apartment so we have been told we can move anytime before the first.  Our biggest desire has been more space.  We know that for 16 more months we just have to accept living in a tight space but we still need more than the small studio we have now.  We would like to actually have a bedroom and an area bigger than about three feet for the entire kitchen, entry way, bathroom sink and laundry room.  We knew finding something we actually liked might be a challenge since housing is very expensive and very small in Seoul, but we made it our mission today to find something.

We were very fortunate that one of our Korean friends could go to real estate offices with us today and see if anybody had anything in our size and price range.  In Korea you have to put a very large deposit down on an apartment before you can sign a lease and then you get the deposit back after your lease is up.  The first few places we went just told us that the deposit amount we were willing to do was not enough and they couldn't rent to us.  Fortunately there are MANY real estate offices in our area so we kept looking until we found one that would show us some places.  What we really wanted was a villa.  In Korea these are often larger and less expensive than apartments (because you aren't paying for the 24hr. security man, cleaning lady, a parking space and the convenience of restaurants in the basement.  They also don't generally come with appliances).  We looked a couple and decided on one that we could live with.  Neither of us were extremely excited about it but it was a nice two bedroom villa with a kitchen that was larger than what we have now (thought that isn't saying much).

But our Korean friend thought we should keep looking so we did.  One of the real estate offices we went to said they had a one bedroom villa available in a new building just built this year.  We had already looked at some one bedroom villas that were barely bigger than what we have now since the one bedroom is literally all the space there is.  So we didn't expect to like it but figured it didn't hurt to look.  That was a good choice.  We fell in love with it as soon as we saw it.

It did only have one bedroom but it was a very large bedroom (not much smaller than our current apartment).  It also came with a living room (about the size of our current apartment).  There was plenty of room to make a nice living area with a couch, coffee table, TV, etc.  and the bedroom was plenty big enough for our bed, a dresser, etc.  The kitchen area was much bigger than what we have now and even though it was in the same area as the living room we would have more room for working in the kitchen (we could actually have two people working in the kitchen instead of only one!).  It also came with the essential appliances that we were assuming we would need to buy right away like a washing machine and refrigerator.  It's on the fifth floor (no elevator!) which is the top floor meaning we also have easy access to the roof where there is a BBQ area.  We both got so excited when we looked at it for the first time that we knew it was THE one.  The price is right, the location is right (it's less than a ten minute walk to work), and the timing is right.  We went back later in the afternoon with one of our coworkers who contacted our boss and said it was fine.  He helped us sign the contract and lease and we move in next Saturday!! 

We are so excited about this place.  It will definitely make the 16 months we have left in Korea enjoyable, more comfortable and exciting.  It will be the first home that we got to find together and we cannot wait for moving day and the months of making our home that will follow.  We will also have room for visitors to stay now so just let us know when you're coming!

We started looking and finished looking for a home on the same day.  I wonder if house hunting is always this easy? :)

Updates and pictures coming soon... :)

Nearly Trampled at the Fireworks Festival

The International Fireworks Festival 2012 happened here in Seoul tonight!  We only wish we never went.  Don't get me wrong the fireworks that we saw were great, the ten million people that were there with us were not.  Still feeling a bit shaken, we don't really even know how to describe what we just experienced but we surely hope it never happens again!  Here's the story...

Background: The International Fireworks Festival happens every October in Seoul.  They shoot off the fireworks at a big park on the river.  This year four countries participated, Italy, USA, China and Korea.  Each country puts on a 20 minute show with a 10 minute intermission in between.  Sounds pretty awesome right?  We thought so.

The Plan: We decided we would meet up with another teacher at the subway station close to home and take the subway to the park.  We knew it would be very crazy busy but we have seen big crowds here so assumed it would be fine.  We planned to find a spot to set out our mat and get some food to eat while we waited for the fireworks to start.  We planned to sit through the first two countries shows and then make our way up close to the subway station where we would stand and watch the third country and part of the fourth country before trying to leave right before it ended to beat some of the crowd.  This is no where close to what actually happened for us.

The Reality:  Everything went fine before the show started.  The subway was busy and it took a little bit to make our way up all the stairs and out because of the crowd but it was fine.  We found ourselves a spot down in the park, got some chicken and waited for the show to start.  There was a tree blocking part of our view of the fireworks (and the steady stream of people that kept walking by) but we still had a pretty great view of the show.  We followed our plan and watched the first two shows then packed up our stuff and started to make our way back up to street level.  Then the madness began.  Thousands, maybe even millions, of people were at street level as well.  Half of them walking towards the park, half of them walking away from the park.  For a few minutes our group of three was able to stick together easily, no one was really pushing and everyone was walking just fine even in a big crowd.  We got to the subway station but a police officer was not letting anyone in it either because they had closed it off or only a certain number of people were allowed in at a time.  So we kept walking.  By now we didn't have much choice in the direction we walked.  We were forced to go with the flow which meant turning onto another street (there was no vehicle traffic near the park tonight).  It's difficult to describe but imagine probably a five or six lane road with sidewalks on both sides packed with as many people as you could possibly fit.  As far as we could see this was what it was like.  Then people started pushing, I think because groups were getting separated so they were trying to push their way through to get back with whoever.  I have never felt claustrophobic before but I started to when I realized there was no way out.  The three of us were still pretty close together but not for long.  I started to feel like I was panicking and knew I needed to find a way out.  I noticed a spot against a wall so I pushed my way over as quick as I could and yelled for Melanie to do the same.  We weren't able to find Eric in time to tell him to get over.  We stopped against the wall for a while trying to get ourselves back to normal (not easy to do when people are pushing you against a brick wall) and think of a plan.  This is when I started to think about how people die from getting trampled as I felt myself being crushed against this brick wall.  Yeah we were scared!  We decided to just wait there as long as it took to get the crowd smaller.  I don't know how long we waited there, maybe 20-30 minutes, but eventually we noticed the crowd thinning a little so not caring what people thought we held hands and started walking again.  I kept hoping Eric had just kept walking and wasn't trying to look for us (he currently doesn't have a cell phone).  We walked for a while and eventually came to a subway station that would take us home.  Fortunately Eric had kept walking, only stopping occasionally to see if he could spot us.  He was also starting to feel like he might panic but was able to keep pressing on until it finally thinned out enough he could stop and have some space.  He got all the way home and fortunately his phone, which hasn't been working well for a while now, worked just long enough for him to call me and us to both know we were all okay.  Because like he keeps saying, that's how people get trampled to death.  He says he couldn't stop thinking about the Black Friday at Walmart stories you hear almost every year.  If someone in that crowd would have tripped and fallen I'm not sure how they would have ever got back up again.  It was probably the scariest situation any of us had ever been in, because I'm not exaggerating when I say there were literally thousands of people all trying to walk on one street, shoulder to shoulder.

The Lesson:  Don't worry we all learned our lesson and will avoid anything that could potentially involve a crowd like that for the rest of the time we are here!  I'm not sure we will even be able to get on a crowded subway for a few days!  Wow.  I wish I had pictures to show you the crowd.  Tomorrow I plan to see if I can find a news article about it and will let you know if I do.  Maybe that was just a normal thing for here.  I honestly don't know how you could possibly even try to control a crowd that big. 

Anyway that was our story for the day and one we plan to never have to tell ever again!  Here are a couple pictures from the fireworks...

 What we saw was a great show!  We're just not sure it was worth such a scary experience later...

Back to Work...

After an amazing week we got to spend with our dads we had to get back in the routine of work today.  But not before we shared one last meal together for breakfast at the local Burger King!  We are so thankful for the time we got to spend with them, even though it went by much too fast and we miss them already.  It was just like a vacation for us too with as much sightseeing (and eating out!) as we did the last five days.  We have been to a palace, two museums, two outdoor markets, N Seoul Tower, the Korean Folk village, a couple of parks and more.  I think they had a good time seeing about as much of Seoul as you can pack into five days but mostly it was so great to get to spend so much time with them since we have been here for seven months already.  Even the fall weather was perfect the whole time they were here.  We have hundreds of pictures to go through and put up this weekend so check our Shutterfly site early next week to see our complete weekend in pictures!  Here are just a few more...

 Torture device used in ancient Korea

 Eric next to the kimchi pots at the Folk Village, his almost favorite food!

 Not a good picture since it is a picture of another picture but N Seoul Tower at night was really cool!

 

Inside the War Memorial of Korea

 At the top of Mt. Namsan

The leaves are starting to change in Seoul!